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On a weekend at the beginning of October, I found myself in Atlanta for the A3C Music Festival & Conference. I had just flown back in town at 5:00pm that evening from filming a music video on the west coast. On the way home from the airport I grabbed some much needed (and missed) Velvet Taco, went home, unpacked most of my bag, repacked some fresh clothes, then jumped in a car with Rajesh and Joe and embarked on a 12-hour drive to Atlanta in the middle of the night.

Our A3C review is in three parts for a reason - this part of the story comes first because it features the person who made all this possible, Rajesh aka Raj the Rapper. Raj, is a lighthearted soul who helps run a non-profit, The Houston Diaper Bank (which supplies social service agencies with diapers), he also teaches meditation, and is a rapper. I met Raj and his manager Joe a few years back at a music function. I remember meeting him more than I remember the show itself, which is certainly the effect he can have on people he interacts with for the first time. About six months ago, I ran into him again at iMix Studios for a networking mixer. Reconnecting took a second because all of us looked so different from when we had all met (haircuts/hairgrowth/weigh-gain/loss, etc.) We got to talking and Raj invited me to the A3C Festival in Atlanta. I told him, "I'm there" and the rest is history.

The energy enveloped in one week in Atlanta was mind-blowing to say the least as the other parts of the story will tell. This video was shot one late night at 5:00am in our hotel parking-lot and is the essence of pure early-morning-hour artistic creativity. I found some lights and puddles that looked interesting and suggested a good angle to Raj. He flipped through his phone, found a free-styled track that he had no video for and we "one-shot it" real quick.